Oh, lord ... why must it be possible to make Strats so beautiful?

reluctant-builder

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So I can throw more money at the fine folks at Warmoth, apparently.

Edit: I'm actually thinking about undertaking this build. If I'm not mistaken, it might even arrive before my Jazzmaster, since there's no finish to be applied.

I'd like to go with a P90 in the neck and a stacked P90 humbucker in the bridge. One volume, one tone (I changed my mind about the knobs after making the mockup). For the five-way switch, I was thinking: bridge, bridge + neck, neck, tapped bridge, tapped bridge + neck. I don't have the electronics acumen to know how to approach the wiring, however.

Any help with wiring diagrams for such a scheme, and capacitance values, would be greatly appreciated. I looked at Seymour Duncan's diagrams for two single coils, two P90s, and two stacked P90s ... but that hasn't helped me infer how to wire up a single coil and a P90 bucker with two pots and a five-way.

I'm intrigued, too, by series vs. parallel, so that might be cool to add ... maybe with a concentric pot?
 

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I'll draw you a diagram if you want it.

It would probably be more useful to have a three way switch, and a push/pull switch to tap both coils. Or perhaps even mini toggle switch to select between multiple taps, if you want to have the pickups wound that way.

That guitar is somewhat similar to the Walnut/Maple/Bubinga/Rosewood/Ebony Strat that I'm building, minus the lam top and plus a pickguard. :blob7:
 
If this was my project I think I'd go for two good quality p-90s instead of messing with the stacked bucker stuff. I've been itching for an excuse to order something from roadhouse for a while  :icon_tongue:

When there are only two coils, like in a dual p-90 guitar or a standard tele, you can isolated a single coil or combine it with another coil in parallel or in series and in phase or out of phase. This gives you six possible sounds. I think tfarny got it right with his most recent project by going with the 5 way switch and omitting the least useful of these six sounds (parallel out of phase). This gives one a very simple control layout and great sounds to boot.
 
Oh, if we're talking about stacked coils, those would be split and not tapped. But the wiring would be the same.
 
line6man said:
That guitar is somewhat similar to the Walnut/Maple/Bubinga/Rosewood/Ebony Strat that I'm building, minus the lam top and plus a pickguard. :blob7:

You know, it didn't even occur to me until you mentioned it, but you're absolutely right; you obviously must have inspired me. Mine is just a walnut top with a swamp ash body, though. And, of course, it's backwards.  :icon_tongue:

I've had my eye on that neck for almost a month now, even though it's upside down, it's a beauty. I guess the body you're making spurred my sometimes unimaginative approach to visualizing guitars to consider a naked wood option, which I'd finish with Tru-Oil. I really like the parchment + ivoroid/pearloid color in contrast to the walnut, ebony and rosewood.

I'll draw you a diagram if you want it.

A diagram would be great. I didn't know the difference between a tap and a split, obviously, but the P90 in the bridge would be stacked. I really don't know what the optimal configuration would be with a single P90 in the neck and a stack in the bridge position ... I agree, though, there is such a thing as too many options ... I'm just not always sure when too much is too much. :)

I suppose I'm curious to compare a five-way switch with the two regular knobs, and a 3-way toggle with perhaps a push-pull pot for splitting the stack. Thanks!

rockskate4x said:
If this was my project I think I'd go for two good quality p-90s instead of messing with the stacked bucker stuff.

What, exactly, don't you like about the stacked P90 idea? Do you just find it needlessly overwrought? I'd love to hear more of your perspective; other people's approaches to things help me paint a clearer picture than is provided by my subjective reality.  :icon_biggrin:
 
For p90 I would do a LPS with p90 neck, mini humbucker bridge. But I'm a vintage strat purist, and a bit of a douchey one at that.
 
3 thoughts: 

1- That's gonna look awesome.
2- That's gonna be expensive. 
3- But who cares, it's not my money, and I'll still get to look at pretty pictures of it.  :icon_biggrin:
 
I don't know if i've ever seen a strat with P90's. wow. it actually blows me away.
 
dNA said:
I don't know if i've ever seen a strat with P90's. wow. it actually blows me away.

Yes you have.
doughboy1.jpg
 
I do not like stacked coils as a p-90 because they do not sound like p-90's in either tapped or untapped orientation. Stacked coils always sound weak when they are split. Even if it sounds decent in full series, I would rather have one awesome sound than have one decent sound and one weak sound.
 
If you're not going to have separate volume controls that allow you to balance the pickup's output, having a series/parallel switch makes more sense than series/split. There's a larger difference in output between series/split than between series/parallel, so however you're planning to balance the output, you'd only get one of them to work well in the two-pickup mode. And parallel sounds an awful lot like split, or more of it. And plus it's still HUMBUCKING, which if you played in some of the dives I have with the malfunctioning neon beer signs launching flying saucer noises through your pickups... ummm, humbucking is sometimes a sad necessity. I personally do like having the volumes for each pickup, because I like the in-between sounds, but I grew up with four knobs and it does take getting used to. If it was good enough for Jimmy Page... etc.

Of course the other issue is if you want the volume drop of a split pickup, because then if you set your amp to sound good and clean with just a little hair on it - split - then kicking in the second coil is your turbocharger.... (sigh) too many choices. Get a Martin & go live in a tree.
 
hannaugh said:
3 thoughts: 

1- That's gonna look awesome.
2- That's gonna be expensive. 
3- But who cares, it's not my money, and I'll still get to look at pretty pictures of it.   :icon_biggrin:

1. Thanks.
2. Depends on what you mean by expensive because, if I just go with SD P90s (even if one of them is stacked), the entire guitar, body, neck, hardware, pups, wire, caps, pots ... is less than a grand.
3.  :icon_biggrin:
 
OK. So, I think I've settled upon a scheme. Two P90 pickups (no stack, just the individual single coils) with two push pull pots and a three-way toggle.

By my understanding, that would allow me to use this diagram as a guide: http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=p90 -- but I'd treat the tone and volume pots each as two stacked atop each other.

Is my logic sound? (not in the aural sense, ha).

Thanks.

Edit: It occurred to me that I might be confusing concentric pots and push-pull pots as fulfilling the same purpose. Do they? I understand that concentric pots are two different pots stacked atop one another, while push-pull are one pot with a box that has six leads to which you attach wires and whether the knob is pushed or pulled, it chooses between one or the other wiring scheme ... but would the push pull allow you to wire to pups to it and act as a tone or volume for one or the other pup, when it is pushed or pulled?
 
This is interesting: http://guitarwiring.blogspot.com/2010/10/wiring-for-p90-pickups-soapbars-dog.html

I tried including the image, but its a PNG and so is transparent against the dark background and therefore unreadable. It's about using a switch with a resistor to affect tone instead of a pot. So, one volume and one tone switch.

dNA said:
is that a rosewood body and neck?

Walnut top on Swamp Ash, Pao Ferro neck.
 
It's kind of a ... haphazard decision, I suppose. I wanted what I perceive to be the tonal qualities of Swamp Ash, but I liked the look of the Walnut, so I thought it would make a nice top that would go well with the neck.
 
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